American Idol Final Five Results

Syesha Mercado and Brooke White made up the bottom two tonight and after Neil Diamond did his best impression of Will Ferrell doing Neil Diamond, Ryan Seacrest delivered the bad news which immediately caused Brooke to burst into tears.

Making it to the Final Five on American Idol is a tremendous accomplishment and Brooke has nothing to be ashamed of; she grew considerably as an artist throughout the season and has an even shot at a career in music.

Neil Diamond is an icon I have loved since I was a kid. His songs dot the soundtrack of my life and I wish he had sang one of his hits but I understand that isn't how it works; his new record Home Before Dark drops May 6 and he needs to sing one of his new songs to promote the new album to the American Idol audience.

Dolly Parton did the same thing when she sang her new song "Jesus & Gravity" and it seemed to undermine her stature as an iconic songwriter because she sang an unknown song aimed at a niche audience. I felt the same way about Diamond.

Idol would be better off getting mentors based on catalog only not catalog with an album dropping during the season.

Seacrest took the opportunity to defend Paula Abdul by saying that this morning he had read what was written about her comments last night and that none of it was true. He did not elaborate any further.

I didn’t think that she seemed inebriated but she certainly was confused when she offered a review of a song Castro was yet to sing last night.

She appeared on the radio with Ryan Seacrest today and explained the goof by offering two explanations; she saw Castro's second song "September Morn" in dress rehearsal and when making notes during the live broadcast she wrote notes for David Cook on the same page as Jason Castro and meant second person not second song.

She should have stuck with the first explanation because then she only would be on the hook for offering feedback from the dress rehearsal not a convoluted double answer where the second one doesn't really make sense given that she continued to speak to Castro not Cook.

Either way, it was funny in the moment but today seems totally blown of out proportion.

More later,

Anne